Holly Lisle’s latest writing ebook, Create A Plot Clinic, is now available. I read an earlier draft and I can’t wait to start using it myself. The book is filled with exercises, tools, and examples to help you develop your stories. It’s divided into four main sections, each covering different phases of plotting.

Section I, Plotting Before Writing, covers structure. Structure of course, is not plot, but a working knowledge of structure is needed to use the tools in the next section.

Section II, Tools — When Things Are Going Well, contains tools designed to generate new ideas and and plot twists. These are the tools to use when things are flowing pretty well. Each tool has a detailed explanation, an example, and an exercise to familiarize yourself with how it works. The tools in this section are:

Question

Twist

Cliffhanger

Character

Line-For-Scene, Take One

Conflict

Language

Culture

Map and Terrain

Throwing Stuff Against A Wall

Theme and Concept

Section III, Tools — When Things Go Splat, covers what to do when the ideas stop flowing freely. They’ll help jump-start your imagination.

Awake—Timed Writing

Awake—Word Games

Awake—Drawings

Awake—Cards

Awake—Making and Doing Things

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Awake—Bore Your Muse

Asleep—Dream Journal

Asleep—Dream Blackmail

Section IV, Plotting While Writing, helps you save stories that need some plot first aid. It covers both works that are unfinished, and works that need revision. It tels you how to recognize and repair a number of potential problems your story may have. It also covers the Line-For-Scene revision technique using colored index cards (something I intend to start for Miracles, hopefully next week).

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[…] cards for the “Miracles” revision. The line-for-scene technique is covered in Holly Lisle’s Create A Plot Clinic, it’s also covered briefly on Holly’s writing diary. I finished up this morning with […]